Katrina, Chernobyl, and the Yes Men

One year has passed since Hurricane Katrina and a staggering level of follow-up ineptitude rendered the effective destruction of New Orleans. I can’t help but think that the effect of that hurricane and what followed may ultimately be to American history what Chernobyl was to the Soviet Union — a domestic disaster whose effects added oil to an already slippery slope. After all, both the United States and the Soviet Union are/were involved in costly, foot-dragging endeavors in the Middle East and South Asian epicenter, adding considerably to the drains of imperial overreach. Suddenly getting a huge new costly domestic disaster made a bad situation a whole lot worse. And we know what wound up happening to the Soviety Union. But the Soviet Union had Mikhail Gorbachev. The United States has George W. Bush. And on the matter of Katrina, can you believe what The Yes Mendid yesterday? Dang. (Confidential to CNN: That movie about The Yes Men was already released.)